Effective CRM does not have to be complex

The term “customer relationship management” or CRM is a bit intimidating for many small business owners.

It tends to conjure up images of big company processes and complicated technology. And many businesses mistakenly believe that CRM is a technology. It’s not. CRM is a way of doing business. And CRM software — web-based platforms or desktop versions — is a tool that helps you manage customer relationships effectively.

Most businesses — including small ones — generate a steady flow of vital information about customers and prospects. Beyond simply names, addresses, phone numbers and emails, this includes valuable information on preferences, purchase history, social media participation, how they’ve interacted with your business in the past, and a wide range of other data. If you don’t have a way to collect and organization this information about customers and prospects, and a centralized place from which to contact them, you are wasting opportunity.

Having a basic CRM solution in place can help you and others at your business stay in touch with prospects and customers more efficiently, qualify and nurture leads, and generate more sales.

Some sophisticated CRM solutions are intended more for large and mid-sized businesses. Salesforce is one example. But many other cloud-based solutions are geared toward smaller businesses, including Commence (commence.com), Zoho CRM (zoho.com/crm), Pipedrive (pipedrive.com), Contactually (contactually.com), and InfusionSoft (infusionsoft.com).

With these small business-oriented CRM solutions — among others — you should be able to get up and running easily, even without prior CRM experience, and without extensive training. Once underway, you will have a world of new capabilities at your fingertips to manage customer support, track leads in different parts of the funnel, launch and manage email campaigns, and handle other marketing efforts as well.

According to Larry Caretsky, president of CRM provider Commence Corp., a CRM system can help you overcome these key challenges:

Data consolidation: At many businesses, customer information exists in multiple places — or simply falls through the cracks. A good CRM solution gives you quick access to a full range of customer information on a single screen.

Lead qualification: As all businesses know, there’s a vast difference between a lead and a qualified lead. The latter, however, can be difficult to define. A CRM can help you devise an effective way to quickly determine a qualified prospect from an unqualified one.

A structured sales process: For growing businesses especially, it can be difficult to get a clear picture of what’s going on in sales, let alone produce accurate forecasts. A CRM system can help you with both.

Here are some things to consider when choosing a CRM solution provider:

Assess your needs in advance. This isn’t a beauty contest, so don’t merely focus on cosmetic appearances or price. Take time to understand and document what your business needs — ease of use, for example, or the ability to scale. Make sure the product you choose can support the unique business requirements you have, but might not be included in the platform’s sample presentation.

Pick a provider that’s been around a while. CRM software has seen explosive growth in recent years, attracting dozens of providers. Look for a provider that’s been around for 8-10 years or more, has a well-established customer base and a good reputation. While there are several free CRM solutions available, they can’t come close to matching what a good paid service offers. This is an area much too vital to your business to risk on a free service.

Inquire about customization. Most systems offer customization features. But unless you dig into them, you might not get what you truly need. For example, make sure you can create custom information fields that let you input data unique to your type of business. You might also want custom reporting features, so make sure those are available. Some systems (Zoho for example) offer plug-ins you can buy separately to meet special customization needs.

After-sale support: Be sure to inquire about the kind of support available to you once you sign up. Does it include free training of some kind to reduce your learning curve? And how will the vendor help if you have a problem?

Reach Daniel Kehrer at bizbest.com. Follow him at twitter.com/140Main.

Posting a comment to our website allows you to join in on the conversation. Share your story and unique perspective with members of the azcentral.com community.

Comments posted via facebook:

► Join the Discussion

Join the conversation! To comment on azcentral.com, you must be logged into an active personal account on Facebook. You are responsible for your comments and abuse of this privilege will not be tolerated. We reserve the right, without warning or notification, to remove comments and block users judged to violate our Terms of Service and Rules of Engagement. Facebook comments FAQ

Join thousands of azcentral.com fans on Facebook and get the day's most popular and talked-about Valley news, sports, entertainment and more - right in your newsfeed. You'll see what others are saying about the hot topics of the day.